The Big Fight

Day-before-yesterday, that is on Friday, I went to attend "The Big Fight". The Big Fight is this another famous talkshow hosted on NDTV in which the three participants stand on one end while the host (currently Vikram Chandra; see pic) sits at a table in another corner. The participants called are often those who hold contradictory views on the same topic, often resulting in a heated debate. The role of the host is to ask provocative questions and cause the heated debate. After the debate, the audience gets 15 minutes to ask questions to the panelists.Today's topic was "Should the government censor the internet?"On the panel were:1. Jayanti Natrajan (congress Spokeswoman),2. Sidharth Luthra (a supreme court advocate specializing in cyber law; he fought the Bazee-MMS case)3. Paranjay Guha Thukrata, Director School of ConvergenceThen joining via satellite (there was a large LCD TV where we could seethem) were:4. Principal, Modern School, Barakhamba Road5. Mr Deepak Maheswari, Director, ISPAI (Internet Service Providers'Association of India)

First Vikram Chandra asked the panelists their views on the blogblockage and later the topic shifted to general internet censorship.Jayanti Natrajan made some outragous comments like:"Bloggers should exercise Self-Control" and "The government only meantto block out 17 harmful site, not tons of regular sites".

Toward the end, Mrs. Natrajan created a hulaaboo about having to goquickly as her flight was in 1.5 hours and she still hadn't done her"homework" (her terminology). As a result, the audience was only given10 minutes to put forward their question and I only got one chance toask something, so I asked what I thought important then,

(I quoted her comments mentioned above) "Maam, you mentioned thatbloggers should exercise self-control and that the government onlymeant to block out harmful sites; yet the only four blogspot sites onthe list were: princesskimberly, a teenager's defunt diary from 2004,not harmful and non political; commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com ajapanese site; and two anti-leftist (exposingtheleft and pajamaeditors)American sites. How are these blogging sites a threat to IndianNational Security? Why were they banned?"

Mrs Natrajan answers, "(nervous laugh) The internet is a new medium of communication and as with every new medium, there may be mistakes, but I was saying that weneed to sensor the internet from harmful things against nationalsecurity or child pornography...." and blah blah blah. (note: this has not been quoted verbmatim, instead, this is as close to her answer as I can remember)

I was on a 10pm show last night on Times Now with Pawan Duggal and some ISP representative. Was at an OB van, couldn't hear too well, but at one point the ISP rep spoke about how the ISPs had done nothing wrong and they weren't being given the benefit of the doubt. I fairly pounced on him then.

Heh...how very typical of Jayanti Natarajan, though I'm quite surprised that she actually accepted that there might have been a mistake. She usually resorts to attack as defence and takes discussions on a tangent.

Ankit: Did Ms. Natarajan mention how the media supported campaign of the bloggers is just an urban elitist conspiracy to malign the Congress Party and Mrs.Gandhi, and only a miniscule part of India's population has actually been affected by this?

She did try to justify that only a tiny tiny % of India accesses the net, so we should also think about other Indians and not only those who see the net or bloggers!!! But no, she didnt call it a conspiracy to malign Congress or Mrs. Gandhi. And her statement where she accepted the small mistake was practically whispered

i like the idea of the congress thinkin blogs r an urban elitist thing while sittin in a village in assam with only 3 computers n 1 internet connection...makes me proud as a regular congress voter...although im sure the opposition would have said the exact same thing. i love my government.